The LA Lakers have gotten the SECOND pick in the NBA Draft for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS. They would gotten the FIRST pick in the draft three straight years but Sliver wanted to keep his ruse on the DL. Don't want anyone to get suspicious.
Yet, the Lakers don't have the patience to rebuild properly through a youth movement. I fully expect them to trade their chips to pursue a a 2nd tier Westbrook and George combo because that's who they are. I mean Big Baller Brand isn't gonna pay for all those expensive seats at Staples Center. They need star-power.
Could a team have more than one top three pick or is that not allowed? Suppose for example that Boston somehow crashed and burned this season and missed the playoffs. Then Celtics would be in the lottery with their own pick while also holding the Net's pick. If the ping pong balls fall into place, could they get both the #1 and #2 pick? Or is it against the rules to get more than one of the top 3 picks in which case the best you can do is #1 and #4 pick? Just wondering.
I agree. This guy looks like he will be amazing. Sorry to say the team most likely to have next year's #1 pick is the Celtics.
But in the 2017 draft lottery video, NBA VP Kiki Vandewegh says that if the same team gets picked again, they redraw. And in fact, their combo did in fact come up for the 2nd pick, so they redrew. Now in this case, Celtics only had the Nets pick so that's correct. But what if in addition to the Nets pick, they had another pick? Would they assign Celtics1 and Celtics2 combos to distinguish the two? Or did Vandewegh mean that you can only get one of the top three regardless of having multiple first round picks? Actually in all the years of the draft lottery, has one team ever held more than one 1st round pick in the manner I described even?
YEA . .. . but no one would ever trust the lottery again If this happened for one of the big name teams Knicks, Boston, Lakers Rocket River
Okay I researched it myself and this situation in which a team held multiple lottery picks did happen. In the 2011 NBA Draft, Cavs held their own lottery pick and owned the Clippers' pick via trade. The Clippers won the 1st pick which was conveyed to Cavs who selected Kyrie Irving. The Cavs own pick was not drawn for 2nd and 3rd via lottery and so they ended up with the 4th pick. They used it on Tristan Thompson. However, I believe that after they won the first pick via the Clippers, there was no restriction on their own pick being selected via lottery for the 2nd or 3rd pick. So Cavs could have easily ended up with the top two picks in 2011. I don't think any team has ever gotten more than 1 top-3 pick. But Cavs came very close to doing so and I think others are right that there are no restrictions on doing so if you happen to own multiple lottery picks via trades.
The Cavs almost pulled it off. And if the Knicks, Boston or Lakers held multiple lottery picks with high odds, I don't see why there would be lack of trust. It would only look suspicious if a team won a lottery pick with low odds but even then if it is 1%, there is still a chance. Anyway, the whole lottery is videotaped and witnessed live. I just don't see how you could rig it now. I believe in the past when the commissioner just drew from envelops, it was a lot easier to think certain envelops were refrigerated or had corners creased or such to identify it. But you can't really rig the lottery machine or the lottery balls. First of all how would you alter the machine or balls to guarantee certain combos or outcomes? Secondly, the NBA would have to bribe or ask the lottery machine company to do the rigging and why would they cooperate? They have no incentive to rig it on behalf of the NBA and it would just open the NBA to blackmail. IOW, since we went to lottery machines with lottery balls, any insinuation that the lottery is rigged is rubbish.
Why need to research? Rockets had 1st and 2nd pick when they drafted Hakeem, and traded that for Ralph Sampson. Imagine Hakeem and MJ on the same team lol
